Oct. 28, 2013

Virginia Sen. Ralph Northam speaks with members of the Eastern Shore Chamber of Commerce during the gorup's annual Eggs & Issues event on Dec. 5, 2012. Northam, an Eastern Shore native, announced his decision to run for lieutenant governor at the meeting. / Staff photo by Jay Diem

Written by

Carol Vaughn

Staff Writer

ONANCOCK — Long before he became known as a politician, Ralph Northam was known on the Eastern Shore of Virginia for his performance on the high school baseball diamond.

Northam if elected Nov. 5 will become the first Eastern Shore native to serve as a Virginia lieutenant governor — and the first elected to statewide office since Gov. Henry A. Wise, who won the gubernatorial election in 1855.

But some recall a different distinction he attained years ago.

“He was the last great bunter in Eastern Shore baseball,” said Dennis Custis, who taught Northam government at Onancock High School. The left-handed hitter also usually was good for a stolen base, Custis said.

Northam’s family and friends recall the state senator as an energetic, principled student who worked hard and was destined for success.

Northam’s father, retired Judge Wescott B. Northam, recalled becoming known as “Ralph Northam’s father” after his son hit a rare home run off Northampton High School star pitcher Warner Crumb.

“You were lucky to even get a hit with Warner,” Northam said, calling the occasion “one of my proudest moments.”

He and his wife, Nancy, were away on a trip around that time.

“We were on our way home and stopped in a restaurant in Northampton County. I walked by a booth of high school kids and they said, ‘That’s Ralph Northam’s father.’ That’s corny, but that made my day,” the elder Northam recalled.

Northam also was captain of Onancock High’s basketball team and reportedly was the first person to dunk a basketball on Tangier Island.

In the classroom, Custis recalled Northam as a very good but “meticulous” student who took most of the allotted time to go over a test before turning it in.

“I knew Ralph would be successful ... but he wasn’t one of the kids I pegged as going into politics,” Custis said.

Northam credits Custis with helping him achieve his first political victory — when as a high school junior he ran for the office of state attorney general at Model General Assembly in Richmond.

(Page 2 of 3)

Custis helped him rework his speech, to be delivered before 500 or 600 students from around the state.

“I remember how nervous he was,” he said.

Northam won the post.

“A week or two ago, he told me he had a need for a speechwriter,” Custis joked, adding on a more serious note, “I’ve always been proud of Ralph; he was a gentleman when he was a student. I think he has been a role model for students from the Eastern Shore.”

Custis summed up his impression of the man by saying, “I don’t think politics has changed Ralph — he’s the same person I’ve always known.”

A family heritage

Northam’s father and grandfather, Thomas Long Northam, both served as judges in the same court, now called General District Court, in Accomack and Northampton counties.

Wescott Northam, now 89, retired as judge 24 years ago.

Before being appointed to the judgeship, he was elected as Accomack County Commonwealth’s Attorney several times, serving in the position for 12 years.

But it was Northam’s mother, Nancy Shearer Northam, who passed away in 2009, who influenced Ralph to pursue a medical career.

A nurse whose father was a surgeon, she worked part-time for 24 years at Northampton-Accomack Memorial Hospital in Nassawadox, working one shift a week on Thursday evenings.

“No question it influenced him — she preached that from early on,” said Wescott Northam.

What also likely made an impression on her sons was the fact that she volunteered to work on all the major holidays — Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Eve — so the full-time nurses could spend time with their families.

“I think she deserves a lot of credit for that,” said Northam.

After retiring, Nancy Northam volunteered with Hospice and also helped young students struggling with reading at Accawmacke Elementary School.

Ralph Northam as a teenager always had a job, his father recalled — as a stockboy for Meatland grocery store, driving a tractor on Floyd Nock’s farm, and as a mate for Capt. Ray Parker and Capt. Bobby Turner of Wachapreague.

“He has energy — where it comes from, I don’t know,” said Wescott Northam.

(Page 3 of 3)

During college he took a summer job as a boat captain, transporting Lance Eller’s work crew to Tangier, where they were resurfacing the airstrip.

In his free time, he and his brother, Accomac attorney Thomas L. Northam, worked on rebuilding the engine of a 1953 Oldsmobile given them by Johnson Chevrolet. The senator still has the car.

After high school, Northam attended Virginia Military Institute, the same college as his brother. There he was a battalion commander his senior year and also served as president of the honor court.

He was one of the first VMI graduates accepted into Eastern Virginia Medical School, from which he graduated in 1984. He then served eight years active duty in the U.S. Army, including treating soldiers wounded during Operation Desert Storm at a hospital in Germany.

Northam now is a pediatric neurologist at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk.

He was elected to the Senate in 2007, representing the 6th District, and was elected to a second term in 2011.